118 Professor Buhler on the Sanscrit Lingiials. 



the second and fourth of these sounds are found in Zend 

 exactly in the same words and forms as in Sanskrit, and the 

 first is common to all the Indo-European languages. 



These objections require a fuller exposition. Regarding 

 the first point, that the possibility of the borrowing of 

 sounds by one language from another has not been proved, 

 it would be unjust to throw the blame of so important an 

 omission entirely on Dr. Caldwell. It is a common fault 

 of comparative philologists that they admit loan-theories 

 too easily, without examining the facts. Max Miiller has 

 combated, very justly, I think, the prevalent opinion, that 

 grammatical laws can be or ever have been introduced from 

 one language into another. Regarding the borrowing of 

 sounds, it may suffice for the present to remark that it never 

 has been shown to occur in the languages which were influ- 

 enced by others in historical times, such as English, Spanish, 

 and the other Romance languages, Persian, &c. Let us consi- 

 der the case of the English. Though half of its words have 

 been imported by the Norman race, though most of the old 

 Saxon inflections have perished in the struggle between the 

 languages of the conqueror and the conquered, though in 

 some instances even Norman affixes have entered the organ- 

 ism of the original language, the quietism of the Saxon or- 

 gans of speech has opposed a passive and successful resist- 

 ance to the introduction of foreign sounds. The English 

 has received neither the clear French ' a,' nor its • u,' nor its 

 peculiar nasals. On the contrary it has well preserved its 

 broad, impure vowels and diphthongs, and it is now as 

 difficult for the Englishman to pronounce the French f a' or 

 e u,' as it was for his Saxon ancestors eight hundred years 

 ago. But we find still stronger evidence against the loan- 

 theory in the well-known fact, that nations which, like the 

 Jews, the Parsees, the Slavonian tribes of Germany, the 



